<p>Over the past decade, there have been hundreds of queries on the CC forum about whether an Ivy League college or other elite school is worth the stress to the parents who have to pay for it or the stress to the kids who need to get there in the first place. Some studies have insisted that career success and overall happiness are not linked to ones alma mater, although Ivy alums often cite the helping hands and open doors that awaited them post-graduation.</p>
<p>So Im doing my own personal study. Being a baby-boomer, I have many friends with 30-something offspring. Commonly, one child graduated from a celebrated college while the other(s) went to a less prestigious place. And, while the snazzy-school grad might have encountered some of those aforementioned helping hands and open doors, I can readily cite at least several families who would claim that the kid with the less luminous sheepskin is the one who is doing best so far. ("Best," of course, can mean many things ... job satisfaction and earnings, engaging graduate studies, a healthy relationship with a partner, general independence, overall contentment ...)</p>
<p>*So heres my question for CC parents *</p>
<p>If you have children who graduated from both top and from middle (or lower) tier colleges, how do you feel that the difference in the prestige of their alma maters has affected their trajectories since?</p>
<p>Both of my diplomas are from IVY-type institutions, my two sisters who graduated from a respectable but not famous LAC in our home state have both had much more successful professional lives than I have, and none of us have done nearly as well as our cousins who graduated from directional Us in their home states. Truly, personality and individual perseverance count for much more than the Latin on a diploma.</p>
<p>I think it also helps to note the major(s) in addition to the alma maters for your study, since say an Engineering major at a state school vs a Psychology major at an Ivy League school, this factor plays a pretty big role as well, might want to lop the similar majors into their own categories</p>
<p>My three sisters and I all went to colleges/universities on CC’s “top” list. All majored in the humanities or psychology. All got good to excellent grades. Wildly different outcomes.</p>
<p>I was the hardworking student in high school; my sister didn’t take it seriously at all. I went to a prestigious private university while she went to a “lesser” state school and then transferred to another public institution that is virtually unheard of outside the immediate area. </p>
<p>We both got degrees in journalism/communications. We have both had good opportunities in our careers but she makes quite a bit more money than I do now.</p>
<p>This is a timely discussion for our family. DS is a HS senior, he will be pursuing mechanical engineering. This weekend we toured a school which gets almost no mention on CC. It has a one of a kind study abroad program for ME’s. It has an honors college for which DS is ultimately qualified, he was able to meet with several professors on very short notice. Oh, and the theater department would love to have him come ‘play’ in whatever area and in whatever time frame would fit into his heavy ME program. (technical theater is a secondary passion)</p>
<p>The campus is very pretty, he loves the town and everyone we met was friendly, outgoing and accommodating. But, given his stats this particular University is ‘beneath’ him. Today he spoke with his counselor. Her advice…if you go there you will be the star. The top opportunities will be available to you, you will most likely be given special treatment. If you go to an ‘elite’ place, you will be one of the herd. </p>
<p>One of the kids I grew up with went to several Ivy’s in pursuit of an advance liberal arts degree. She is still clocking in at the office everyday where as her brother who dropped out of college is in the 1% living and living in a villa in the wine country. I went to what would be considered podunk U on CC and between my husband who did not complete his degree and Ms. Podunk graduate we’ve been semi retired for many years.</p>
<p>dietz - Combining intense MechE and theater opportunities can be a hard thing. Perhapsattending a school beneath stats potential is a way to make that work. Sounds like a great opportunity that should stay on the list, elite or not.</p>
<p>If his first choice is a safety, then he may need to apply to only one college. And, with engineering, ABET accreditation does set a reasonably high minimum standard of quality (check [ABET</a> -](<a href=“http://www.abet.org%5DABET”>http://www.abet.org) for accreditation), so it is less of a concern that a less selective university will have a weak degree program in engineering versus some other subjects.</p>
<p>However, he should be aware that a lesser known school is less likely to be visited by non-local recruiters, so he may have to be more aggressive at looking for companies to apply to for internships and post-graduation jobs.</p>
<p>I have a cousin who struggled in high school, then attended a community college. His siblings, all high-achieving students, attended top colleges. He found his calling in a technical area, then went on to get a four-year degree from a “lesser” university. They have all grown up to be happy, productive citizens, which I think is the main goal. However, he is the one who is making lots of money.</p>
<p>A top grad from a top school has the potential to do fabulously well, with no limits imposed by the lack of a pedigree. Thus, a top grad from a top school is eligible for certain prestigious jobs for which a lesser school grad would never be able to get an interview. Some companies only want Ivy grads bios on their website. </p>
<p>However, if you are at a top school but aren’t the cream of the crop, you may be worse off. For example, a high GPA kid majoring in econ at HYPS can land an investment banking job if interested. But the HYPS econ majors with GPA’s too low for the likes of Goldman, won’t get the prime finance jobs and yet won’t have the pre-professional degree that other companies are looking for, eg. marketing, finance or accounting. Having spent a lot of time over the last year looking at job ads, my HYPS student’s weakness is that very thing–the companies hiring want a pre-professional degree she doesn’t have since those degrees aren’t offered by HYPS.</p>
<p>I was completely taken by surprise with this particular University. Yes, it’s ABET accredited. It offers a unique one year study abroad option which does extend the program to 5 years but DS would graduate with a BS in ME and Material Sciences. The study abroad program has hired a professor who serves one and only one purpose…to teach the technical vocabulary/language skills needed to succeed in the foreign universities. They also have an internship program where students can choose to work for one or two semesters at about 80% normal pay rate with a large number of well know companies…both in state and in neighboring states.</p>
<p>While S might just be offered a seat at a ‘bumper sticker worthy’ school, it’s hard to imagine his actual opportunities would be far superior. Oh, and the full freight sticker price is less than an instate UC rate. </p>
<p>Okay…sorry to hijack…now…back to the regular topic at hand:)</p>
<p>I only have one in college so far, but I can tell you how it worked with my siblings and myself. One of us went to a top tier college (not an Ivy, but right up there). The rest of us went to middle of the pack schools- a couple mid-size Jesuit schools and one large state school. Two did not graduate (didn’t have the money to finish). The top-school sibling has done no better than anyone else. The financially most successful of us went to the lowest rated school for college, but went to a top law school. I’d say we all had very similar intellectual gifts, but personal drive and ambition ultimately made the difference, not the school name on the sheepskin.</p>
<p>I would go farther and say that there are roughly three ways to perceive high school:
as a place to learn academics in the classroom
as a place to groom to become the perfect applicant for HYPS and enjoy dominating the local academic competition.
as a place to learn about interpersonal interaction, both from ‘socializing’ and participation in Extracurricular activities.</p>
<p>(obviously these aren’t the only three ways to perceive high school, but for the purposes of this particular discussion, these three come to mind.)</p>
<p>Here’s what I predict about how the life treats these three groups:
These kids are working hard and learning a lot of academics, but they may be missing out on what the kids in group 3 are getting.
These kids will do well no matter where they go, they are bright, goal orriented and hardworking, but may not do as spectacularly as …
These kids are really learning what makes things happen in the real world, what makes people tick. In US society, this is a prerequisite to ‘making a killing.’</p>
<p>I only have the data of my personal observations (3 brothers, cousins, friends) and the ideas in my head. But I find the question very interesting and worth musing about. I’ve often noticed that at a certain point, (140?) more IQ points doesn’t lead to more income, and in fact leads to less income. To my knowledge this hasn’t been studied.</p>
<p>As Marsian said: They have all grown up to be happy, productive citizens, which I think is the main goal. </p>
<p>I agree wholeheartedly. There is room in my mind for the idea that the most selective schools might be the best social-emotional fit for a particular student, and more likely to lead to them growing into happy, productive citizens, and therefore worth the cash even if the economic bottom line is closer to ‘comfortable’ than ‘spectacular.’ </p>
<p>I can report on my siblings and me. Of the 5 of us, the one who went to the elite school is exactly in the middle of the pack. The rest of us went to state schools.</p>
<p>These are not mutually exclusive categories. Plenty, if not most, of group 2 kids have excellent social skills. No one is getting into the Ivies without something more than a good academic record. These kids have impressive EC’s of spearheading community and national initiatives, as well as the more ordinary things like club officer, class president, varsity captain, editor-in-chief, etc. Sometimes these leadership positions can be landed by awkward kids, but I doubt it happens regularly. It’s time to stop stereotyping Ivy candidates as people who spent too much time studying alone in their bedrooms and now lack an understanding of people and how the world works.</p>
<p>I agree wholeheartedly with TheGFG, but would add that many students who initially present as socially awkward become significantly less so once they are among peers with similar interests and goals. In fact, one reason frazzled S and D persisted in taking honors classes in areas in which their initial interest was lagging, was the opportunity to interact with motivated peers who were respectful of teachers. They themselves found that when they tried the easier classes, they were often frustrated by what seemed to them to be excessive “busy work” as well as peers who did not take schoolwork seriously and were even disrespectful of teachers.</p>
<p>Actually, in our family we have a small experiment of 2, with two students who graduated from the same high school with almost identical SAT/AP scores and similarly impressive resumes, with one going to an elite school and the other to a lower first tier/second tier school with merit money. I have to say that the jury is still out on which will end up doing better - I think we will need to wait another five or ten years.</p>
<p>In my years as an upperclassman I was in exactly one standard level class for one day. Although the information in the class could’ve been useful, I felt incredibly annoyed just sitting there for one day and asked to be transferred out to an harder class. I don’t think it’s hard to see why any motivated student would want to take an honors class.</p>